BEIJING (Reuters) - China's real estate land supply dropped 7.8 percent on the year to stand at 71,000 hectares in the first nine months in 2016, the Ministry of Land and Resources said in a notice on Tuesday.

"Real estate land supply in 2016 may be the lowest since 2010," Yicai said, adding that the 2016 decline would have an impact on new home supplies in 2017 and 2018.

China's real estate land supply has been on a gradual decline since 2013's peak of 203,200 hectares, with the figure dropping to 120,000 hectares in 2015 and 151,000 hectares in 2014, according to Yicai.

China will stick to differentiated housing policies for different cities and adopt macro-level control accordingly to ensure the housing market is stable, Yicai said, quoting an unidentified ministry official.

However, it has become more difficult to "adjust and control the market" as the real estate land market has apparently diverged, said Wang Jianwu, a researcher at the ministry's real estate registration center, state radio reported.

Wang cautioned against risks of rising social instability and financial risks, if the market rises or falls rapidly.

Residential land prices in more than 100 major Chinese cities rose 6.77 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, with average per-square-meter cost rising to 5,781 yuan ($852), the ministry's quarterly report showed last Friday.